UNITED NATIONS -- With little fanfare, the United Nations and the United States are each looking at ways to get food and medicine to Iraq's 22 million people should Washington go to war. Washington stresses it has made no decision to attack as it awaits Baghdad's response to a UN Security Council resolution giving the oil-rich but impoverished middle east nation a final chance to disarm or face "serious consequences."

But U.S. and UN officials say it is only prudent to think ahead.

"We prefer to call it contingency planning 'for a possible humanitarian crisis' rather than 'for a possible war,'" said UN official Stephanie Bunker of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"Whenever military planners conduct contingency planning, humanitarian assistance figures into that planning process," said pentagon spokesman LT. Col. Dave Lapan.

Disruptions in the food supply could reasonably be expected with military action anywhere.

But Iraq is a special case as much of its economy including most of its food supply is at one time or another managed or monitored by the United Nations.

This is because of the UN oil-for-food program, put in place in 1996 to ease the impact of sweeping UN trade sanctions imposed on Baghdad after its 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait.

???????? UN Review Process?????? Under the program, all of Iraq's purchases are controlled by the United Nations, which pays suppliers out of Baghdad's oil revenues.

All food bought through the program is shipped to warehouses in Baghdad, from where it is distributed in central and south Iraq by the government in Baghdad, and in northern Iraq -- much of which is not under the control of the government -- by a UN system led by the World Food Program.

The program is both vital to the Iraqis, many of whom are underfed, and highly vulnerable to disruption in case of war, as all food passes through Baghdad before distribution.

The makeup of the "food basket" given monthly to each and every Iraqi is carefully calculated to combat malnutrition. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reported to the Security Council this month that over 60 percent of Iraq's people -- "the poorest of the poor -- rely solely on the monthly food basket to meet all household needs."

The UN Iraq Program, the World Food Program, the UN Children's Fund UNICEF, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN refugee agency UNHCR are all now looking at ways to keep Iraqis fed in the event of war, Reuters quoted UN officials as saying.

However, in no case were UN staff or food supplies being preposition, they said.